May 29

Remembering Harvey Korman

Tag: Celebrities, Memorial — Patrick @ 10:46 pm
“It takes a certain type of person to be a television star. I didn’t have whatever that is. I come across as kind of snobbish and maybe a little too bright. … Give me something bizarre to play or put me in a dress and I’m fine.”

—Harvey Korman

One of the main reasons I loved watching the TV classic The Carol Burnett Show was the pairing of Tim Conway and Harvey Korman. Whenever those two shared a scene, you knew it was going to be funny…not only because of the performance itself, but because of Korman’s usually-failed attempts to keep a straight face as Conway did his schtick.

Korman has died at age 81.

From voicing the Great Gazoo on The Flintstones to his portrayal of the egomaniacal Hedley Lamar in Blazing Saddles, he has left a legacy of decades of good humor for kids of all ages.

Years ago, Korman explained his inability to refrain from laughing at Conway by pointing out that a fellow performer never knew what Conway was going to do next. He would do things one way in rehearsal and apparently a completely different way at the actual show taping.

Somehow, the audience never seemed to mind Korman’s breakups. In fact, it made already-funny material all the more enjoyable.

Back in January of this year, he was operated on for a brain tumor. The operation was successful, but just days after returning home, he suffered the rupture of an abdominal aortic aneurysm and was given just hours to live. He proved his doctors wrong, but after several major operations, he was just too weak. His daughter, Kate, said he fought until the very end. “He didn’t want to die. He fought for months and months,” she said in an AP article.

Carol Burnett is said to be devastated by Korman’s passing. Understandable. The world has lost part of its sense of humor.

I’ll wrap up this sad news with a clip of one of Korman and Conway’s most famous moments: Conway is playing a novice dentist who is a little too careless with a needle full of Novocaine.

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Thanks for the many, many laughs, Harvey.

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